Ex CIA chief Brennan labels Trump 'despicable'

President Donald Trump traveled to the CIA headquarters today to offer reassurance to the intelligence community after he has spent weeks criticizing it.

However, his remarks in front of a wall of stars memorializing fallen officers did not go over well with everyone in the crowd, and have drawn significant criticism, especially from the agency's recently departed Director Brennan.

Nick Shapiro, a former aide to John Brennan at CIA said to NBC: 'Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump's despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA's Memorial Wall of Agency heroes.'





According to Shapiro, Brennan believes that Trump should be ashamed of himself.



This comes after weeks of back-and-forth feuding between President Trump and Director Brennan of the CIA, regarding claims surrounding the dirty dossier.

The feud culminated in Trump blaming intelligence agencies for using Nazi-like tactics - drawing a rebuke from outgoing CIA Director John Brennan.



The President today expressed support for the CIA, but also denounced the media for what he believes is dishonest and biased coverage of his inaugural weekend.

He said reporters made up the tension between him and the CIA. 'I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest people on earth,' Trump said. 'They made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence people.'

He spent a good period of time during the briefing discussing himself and his accomplishments, boasting about the size of his inaugural crowds and commenting on how smart he is, reported NBC.



The tone was vastly different than that of other presidents who have spoken there, many of whom tend to pay close attention to the sacrifices of the CIA officers and their families.

A former senior CIA officer called the President's remarks: 'free-wheeling, narcissistic diatribe,' reported NBC.

However, another former CIA officer who supports Trump told NBC that the visit was a success, saying: 'This is the part the media doesn't get - this is not like any other president. The critics hate this president so much they cannot get past it. The truth of the visit was in the face to face meetings - people were happy to talk to him. That assuaged a lot of concerns and a lot of anxiety.'



The new president also took the time to launch another attack on the 'dishonest' media at CIA headquarters, telling employees of the spy agency that reported attendance numbers for his swearing-in dramatically undershot the truth.

His declaration suggested that he believes one unnamed television network may have aired an overhead image shot long before the ceremony began.

'We had a massive field of people. You saw that. Packed,' he told the CIA workers.

'I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I said, 'Wait a minute! I made a speech! I looked out. The field was – it looked like a million, a million and a half people!''

'It looked honestly – it looked like a million and a half people,' Trump said. 'Whatever it was, it was. But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument.'

'And I turn on the thing, and by mistake I get this network, and it showed an empty field. And it said we drew 250,000 people.

'Now, that's not bad,' Trump continued, 'but it's a lie.'

'We had 250,000 people literally around - you know, in the little bowl we constructed. That was 250,000 people. The rest of the, you know, 20-block area back to the Washington Monument was packed. So we caught them. And we caught them in a beauty. And I think they're going to pay a big price.